MEMORIAL DISCOURSE 



^itl^iel tf. ^looi'e, !<!<.©., 



SOMETIME PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK, 



DELIVERED AT THE REQUEST OF THE ALUMNI, 



January 14, 1874, 



IN THE COLLEGE CHAPEL, 



BENJAMIN I. HAIGHT, S-.T.D., LI.D., 

Of the Class of 1S28. „ i. -, 



PUBLISHED BY DIRECTION OF THE ALUMNI AND OF THE 
BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 

- — ■ 



Charles A. Kittle, Stationer and Printer, 765 Sixth Avenue. 



1874. 



4 



A . v !&» 



N.Y, Pub, I-i&« 




i'WgHBLij4 






^OHANOEO. 



(Of the Class of 1826) 
■f>L Son of Polumbia Pollege, 

TO WHOM, FROM THE HOUR OF LEAVING HER HALLS, 

WITH HER HIGHEST HONORS, 

SHE COULD EVER POINT AS FULFILLING 

THE PROMISE OF HIS YOUTH : 

WHETHER AT THE BAR, IN THE FORUM, 

IN THE LEGISLATIVE HALL, 

AS A TRUSTEE OF THE COLLEGE, 

AS GOVERNOR "OP" HIS .NATIVE STATE, 

AS A SENATOR] OF THE REPUBLIC, 

AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF HIS COUNTRY ABROAD, 

AS SECRETARY OF STATE AT A CRITICAL PERIOD : 

EVER FAITHFUL TO DUTY; DILIGENT, WISE, 

PRUDENT, JUDICIOUS, F.NERGETIC, 

LOYAL TO HIS COUNTRY, BUT NEVER FORGETTING HIS RACE, 

A TRUE DISCIPLE OF THE WORLD'S REDEEMER, 

THE PEACE-MAKER, THE CHRISTIAN PATRIOT, 

THE HONEST MAN : 

THIS DISCOURSE 

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 

BY HIS FRIEND OF MANY YEARS. 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE 



Brethren of the Alumni : — 

My first recollections of Columbia College belong to 
my school-boy days. I remember one morning, when I was 
about eleven years of age, standing on Church street, and 
looking through the iron railing which surrounded the Col- 
lege ground on three sides, attracted by the students, who 
were in full force on the Green, robed in their Aca- 
demic gowns — a joyous band. It was some public day. 
My impression is that it was the opening of the Term in 
the Fall, and the Examination of Candidates for admission. 
I gazed on the scene with delight, not unmingled with 
awe ; for a Collegian, in my young eyes, was a wonder- 
fully great man : and I began to count the years and 
months that must pass before I could arrive at this dis- 
tinction ; and to wonder how I could ever learn Greek ; 
comforting myself, however, by the reflection that what so 
many boys before me had done I could possibly do also. 

Some three or four years afterwards, in 1824, I was 
one of a like company of aspirants, bright, happy, hope- 
ful, wondering spirits. How grand everything about the 
College seemed — the stately sycamores on the Green, vener- 
able from age, overshadowing the edifice; the old building; 
the great staircase ; the Chapel, with its strange hanging 
gallery ; the Dais, at the east end, and the white-haired 



MEMORIAL 



President, in his robes, and the Professors on his either 
hand. How great it all seemed ! What a day that was 
for us ! How full of wonder and admiration and hope, not 
without intrepidation and dread. 

Of the examinations I have no recollection but of one ; 
that on Mathematics and the English studies also, con- 
ducted by that remarkable man, Prof. Adrain, better known 
to us afterwards as " Old Bobbie." He was an Irish gen- 
tleman, of large size, broad, beaming face, and silvery 
voice. As a mathematician he held the highest rank, being 
second only to Bowditch, confessedly the most learned man 
of the day in that department of Science. He was one 
of the few men in the country who could read La Place. 
In the examination on Geography, to the astonishment 
of the candidates, and their consternation, he took us 
up on the Polar regions. He had, probably, just been 
reading a volume of Parry's Discoveries; and, in his eccen- 
tricity, took that part of the earth as the theme of his 
questioning of those who might have been justly supposed as 
ignorant of that part of the earth as they were of the 
moon. He sent down two or three of the class, and, when 
it came my turn, he asked, first, where Mackenzie's River was. 
I had fortunately been recently reading the volume which 
I suppose he had, and, to my relief, I could tell him. He 
had begun to be somewhat irritated at the inability of the 
boys to answer his questions, and when he found one 
that could give a reply, his broad face beamed with de- 
light, and my fortune was made. I entered very high in 
the class (for it was the practice at that time to enroll the 
candidates according to the results of the primary exami- 
nation) — far higher than my actual deserts, and ranked 



«<* n 

DISCOURSE. 7 



several of my school-mates who were my superiors in some 
of the departments. 

The only Professors with whom we were brought into 
contact during the Freshman year were Professors Adrain, 
and Anthon, the Adjunct Professor of Greek and Latin. 
The latter was then almost in the beginning of the long 
series of his years of service as a Classical Teacher, 
marked throughout by most astonishing industry; deep and 
varied scholarship; and marvelous success in leading on 
his scholars to a high appreciation of the value of the 
study of the writings of the scholars of Greece and Rome ; 
and in all which years his fame as an accomplished scholar, 
and a thorough teacher of the Classics, was day by day 
increasing. As an instructor he was strict, energetic, full 
of life and animation; severe when occasion called for it, 
and sometimes when it did not. Inattention, idleness, care- 
lessness, were almost out of the question with us. Woe 
to the boy who was guilty of either, or who attempted 
to deceive him ! The scathing rebuke, the withering sar- 
casm, made the most reckless and daring spirit quail. The 
result was, we all did our best. 

Professor Adrain, our other instructor, was a man dif- 
ferent in almost every respect from Professor Anthon. 
Eminent in his chosen line of study, and very fond of 
its pursuit, he had little or no faculty of imparting his 
knowledge to others. If one was thoroughly prepared in 
his recitation, all was well; but if the student was in doubt, 
or needed a word of explanation in a difficult problem, he 
not only did not get any assistance, but was set down 
with some remark of this sort: "If you cannot under- 
stand Euclid, Dearie, [a term he frequently used when out 



MEMORIAL 



of temper,] I cannot explain it to you." The consequence 
was that a small fraction of the class only could keep up 
with his course, those who had entered College thor- 
oughly versed in the elements of Mathematics, and who 
studied very diligently after they entered his lecture-room — 
in my class not more than one-fifth of our number. I ought 
to add, however, that those who went to him in private, 
always found him kind in manner, and ready to answer 
their questions and help them out in their difficulties. 
My own relations with him were, throughout, of the most 
pleasant character, and I cherish his memory as that of a 
genial friend of marvellous powers and a wonderful mathe- 
matical genius. 

Dr. Adrain left the College at the end of our Junior 
year, and was succeeded by that true gentleman and ac- 
complished scholar, who is still with us, the object of our 
affectionate regards and our highest esteem^ Dr. Henry J. 
Anderson. Of him, as the Professor of Mathematics in our 
College, I shall only say, that he was one of the ablest 
and most successful teachers who has ever filled that, or 
any other chair, winning the respect and regard of the 
students in a remarkable degree, and making what is usual- 
ly a dry and unattractive study, interesting and profitable. 
My own debt of obligation to him has not yet been, and 
will never be cancelled. 

Upon our entering upon our Sophomore year, we came 
for the first time under the care of Professor Moore, of 
whom I am to speak to you particularly on the present 
occasion. He then occupied the chair of Latin and Greek, 
which he had filled for the previous eight years. He was 
in the first prime of life — tall, spare, lithe, with a fine 



DISCOURSE. 



intellectual face, bearing the marks of years of hard study 
and close application. His air was grave and serious, 
though not severe. His very presence inspired at once the 
respect of his pupils. He was evidently a man not to 
be trifled with. If a student forgot himself a moment, and 
made the least noise in his lecture-room, the look of 
startled surprise which fell upon him instantly brought 
him to himself. Indeed, nobody ever thought of behaving 
disorderly in his room. The most careless, thoughtless, 
rollicking men carried themselves with propriety under his 
eye. 

Professor Moore possessed the faculty, somewhat rare, 
I apprehend, of interesting his pupils deeply in the ex- 
ercises of his lecture-room, and of inspiring the desire of 
knowing more and more of the great authors of antiquity 
and their famous works. He was a thorough classical 
scholar himself, having been trained in the College by 
the venerable and erudite Dr. Peter Wilson, (who for 
twenty-six years filled the chair of Greek and Latin). He 
was much more than a linguist or grammarian. He appre- 
ciated thoroughly all the beauties of the old poets and phi- 
losophers, and enjoyed intensely their elegant niceties of 
expression, their marvellous use of words, as well as their 
vigor and subtlety of thought. He was filled with their 
spirit. And so as he sat with his students — not by any 
formal lectures, not by any display of knowledge, but by his 
occasional remarks, by calling their attention now and then 
to the turn of expression and to the epithet, he insen- 
sibly awakened and strengthened their desire to go onward 
in their study of the wondrous authors whose power they 
had begun to feel. 



3t 



10 MEMORIAL 

Professor Moore was a devout Christian man, and well 
versed in the Sacred Scriptures. The poets and sages of 
the Hebrews, and the Evangelists and Apostles of the 
primitive Christian Church, were familiar to him. And 
he was wont, whenever the opportunity occurred, to turn 
from the Pagan authors to the Inspired Writers of the 
Scriptures, when thereby the meaning of the expressions 
of the latter could be more fully brought out by the 
words and phrases of the former, or when the superiority 
of the teaching of the latter on the great questions of 
life and duty was apparent ; and he did this so simply 
and naturally, and, as it were, just by the way, that no 
question was ever raised in the minds of his scholars as to 
the truth and pertinency of his suggestions. 

And, while he was thus our accomplished and admira- 
ble teacher, he was also our faithful and conscientious 
Mentor in reference to our individual character and conduct. 
His aim was to help us to become Christian gentlemen, as 
well as accurate scholars. He was himself ever regardful 
of all the proprieties of life. Everywhere, and at all times, 
his deportment was marked by a strict observance of the 
laws of gentlemanly conduct. Whereever he might be, in 
whatever company, not a look, or a word, or an act es- 
caped him which was not eminently right and proper. 
Hence, any "hint" given by him to a student — any look 
or word of reproof — went straight home to the heart. I 
shall never forget the only time (I think) in which I 
ever was placed in this relation to him. I was led one 
morning in Chapel to exhibit some levity of manner; it 
was slight, and for a brief time, and at once passed from 
my mind. On taking my seat in his lecture-room, I 



DISCOURSE. 11 



noticed his eye fastened on me somewhat sternly. He 
bade me stand up, and then in a few severe words 
reminded me of my violation of duty; the more inexcusa- 
ble from my standing in the class and my general repu- 
tation; and warned me against a repetition of the offence.* 
But I must now turn from my personal recollections 
of Dr. Moore, and proceed to give a sketch of his life 
in proper form and order. As in the case of most men 
of literary pursuits, his life was an uneventful one, as that 
term is usually understood. And yet, while you can nar- 
rate its incidents almost in a breath, who can tell what 
potent influences were going forth, day by day, from his 
chair in the College, for nearly twenty years, which were 



* In reference to the honored and beloved President Harris, and 
the other members of the Faculty at this period of whom I have 
not spoken, I would gladly say a few words if it came properly 
within the scope of my Address. They were men of repute in their 
respective spheres, and an honor to the College. The President was 
a remarkable man, not so much for any one feature of his character, 
as for a happy combination of the several qualities of mind and, 
heart which go to make the effective guide, teacher and friend of 
young men. Professor Anthon used to say that the period of his 
Presidency to 1829 were the halcyon days of our College. Professor 
McVickar, the accomplished occupant of the chair of Belles-Lettres, 
was an admirable teacher, as well as a superior scholar, of whom 
the present Rector of Trinity Church, Dr. Dix, one of his pupils, has 
said publicly that he owed more to him than to any other teacher 
whose instruction he had enjoyed. Professor Renwick, though not 
successful as a teacher of physics, was eminent for his attainments in 
science. 

Altogether, the Faculty at the time of which I am speaking, was 
a distinguished one ; and the state of the College was most satisfactory. 
The moral tone of the students was high. The great body of them 
were students in fact as well as in name, and the record of their 
subsequent lives has, for the most part, been honorable alike to the 
College and themselves. 



12 MEMORIAL 



the impelling causes to thousands and tens of thousands 
of acts on the part of his students, which affected deeply 
not only their own destinies, but the destinies of their 
fellow men, and the course of the world's life. In this 
light, how striking often — how marvellously eventful, is the 
life of the student, the philosopher, and the educator ! 

But to my narrative. 

Nathaniel F. Moore was born at Newtown, L. I., on 
Christmas day, 1782, of a respectable, but not wealthy, 
family, descended from the Eev. John Moore, an Inde- 
pendent Minister, who was the pastor of a colony of English 
who planted the town of Newtown, (then called Middle- 
burg,) in 1652 ; his father was Dr. William Moore, a 
highly respected physician, who, for more than forty years, 
was in extensive practice in New York;* his uncle was the 
Right Reverend Dr. Benjamin Moore, of blessed memory, 
the second Bishop of this diocese. His parents removed 
to this city when he was about a year old, and he re- 
membered being carried by his father to see the civic pro- 
cession on the occasion of the adoption of the Constitution, 
on which occasion, hearing the cry all around: " Huzza for 
Independence !" he perverted it into " Huzza for repentance !" 
and perhaps some of his loyalist friends may have thought 
the change not inappropriate. He was graduated at our 
College in 1802, and delivered the Latin Salutatory with 
an oration, u De Astronomic Laudibus." He received his 



*He was our family physician, and I can see him now as he used 
to come and visit my mother, always in the professional costume of 
those days, carrying a gold-headed cane, which was the object of my 
special wonder and admiration. He stood very high in his profession 
and was universally respected and beloved. 



DISCOURSE. 13 



Master's degree in course, and the honorary degree of 
Doctor of Laws in 1825. He chose the profession of the law, 
which he studied under a much valued friend of his family, 
the late Beverly Kobinson, who was not much his senior 
in years ; and was admitted to the bar in 1805. He was 
of too diffident and retiring a disposition to distinguish 
himself in that profession, and he never practised much; 
his chief occupation, aside from the cultivation of letters, 
up to the time of his appointment as Adjunct Professor of 
Greek and Latin, was as Master in Chancery, and Notary. 
In 1817, he found an occupation more congenial to his 
tastes, and for which he was more peculiarly fitted, in the 
appointment as Adjunct Professor of the Greek and Latin 
Languages in Columbia College, and, three years later, on 
the death of Dr. Wilson, to the chair of Professor. In 
1835, he resigned his professorship and, in the autumn of 
that year, (September 24th,) embarked for Havre, accom- 
panied by a sister, and traveled, during nearly two years, 
in France, Italy, Switzerland, and England, returning home 
on the 2d of June, 1837. In 1839, (July 3d,) he again 
embarked for Europe, and visited Greece, Egypt, Palestine ; 
and thence, by Smyrna and Constantinople, and up the 
Danube, to Vienna, visiting Ischel, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, 
&c. ; and thence, via Hamburg and England, home, where 
he arrived safe and well on the 18th of October, 1840. 
In 1842, he was elected President of Columbia College, 
which post he resigned in 1849. 

In 1851, he made another trip across the Atlantic, 
which only occupied about six months, (April 23d till 
about October 23d), on which occasion he made a visit to 
some connections of his family in Ireland. The World's 



14: MEMORIAL 



Fair was the great attraction in London, and, of course, 
he made very frequent visits to it. He was much struck 
with the specimens there exhibited of the (then new) art 
of photography on paper, and, at Paris, furnished himself 
with a camera and other apparatus, and, on his return 
home, devoted himself, for some time, very assiduously to 
the practice of the art, which was then pursued under 
many difficulties which do not now embarrass it, as many 
of the chemicals could not then be procured, and he was 
obliged to prepare them himself. On this visit to London, 
he was present at the interesting ceremonies at Westmin- 
ster Abbey, and at St. Martin's Hall, on the 16th, 17th, 
and 18th of June, 1851, on occasion of the Jubilee Cele- 
bration of the one hundred and fiftieth Anniversary of the 
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which inter- 
ested him very much. 

In May, 1855, in company with his brother-in-law, Mr. 
De P., and a niece, Dr. Moore embarked for his 
fourth tour in Europe, which only occupied about six 
months, traveling in England, France, Germany, and Switz- 
erland. He left his companions in Switzerland, and went 
to Ireland, (via Paris and London), to pay a second visit 
to his Irish connections. Besides these various tours in 
Europe, he traveled quite extensively in our own country ; and 
always dwelt with peculiar pleasure on an excursion made 
during the summer of 1842, with his friend, Mr. Edward 
Laight, to Washington, the Natural Bridge, the White 
Sulphur Springs, the Mammoth Cave, Niagara Falls, &c. 
The last excursion of any length that he made, except his 
annual visits to Saratoga, was in the Summer of 1865, 
when, with a party of six, he visited Trenton Falls, 



DISCOURSE. 15 



Niagara Falls, and Montreal. He was then in his eighty- 
third year. 

In 1834, he published his work on Ancient Mineralogy; 
it fell almost still-born from the press in this country, but 
was highly appreciated by many scholars in England, and 
he found it a good letter of introduction on his first 
visit there ; a second edition of this book, considerably en- 
larged and improved, was published by the Harpers, in 
1859 or 1860. In 1835, he published six lectures on the 
Greek Language and Literature, the first of a short course 
which he had read in Columbia College. 

In 1844, while President of the College, he published 
a short " Introduction to Universal Grammar," for the use 
of the Freshman Class ; and subsequently " A Historical 
Sketch of Columbia College," which was printed for the 
College in 1846. Dr. Moore took a very lively interest 
in the library of the College, and, during a portion of the 
interval between his resignation of his Professorship and 
his election to the Presidency, acted as Librarian, and 
spent much time in cataloguing and introducing better or- 
der into it. In order to awaken in other alumni and 
friends of the College the interest he himself felt, he in- 
vited them to hear an address on the subject of Libraries, 
in which he showed the deficiency of our country in this 
matter, compared with others. The address was read in the 
College Chapel, on the 16th of March, 1844, but the even- 
ing was unpropitious, and the audience very small. Four 
years later he printed the address, and distributed it 
amongst the alumni, with a circular letter asking for con- 
tributions of any books or pamphlets which they might be 
able to spare. 



^|¥ 



16 MEMORIAL 



Early in his connection with the Faculty of the College, 
he published "Remarks on the Pronunciation of the Greek 
Language," in answer to an essay on the same subject by 
Mr. Pickering, in which that gentleman defends, and seems 
to recommend for adoption, the pronunciation of the Mod- 
ern Greeks ; in opposition to which, Professor Moore 
advocated the Erasmian pronunciation, or that generally 
adopted by western scholars. On this subject, his views 
were considerably modified later in life. The beginning 
of this change of his opinion is probably shown in this 
passage, which appears in his diary of his first visit to 
Paris : 

"At the Sorbonne, I attended a a lecture of Mr. Jules 
David, who read and explained to a small class of about 
thirty, a portion of the Ajax of Sophocles, the first Choral 
Song, and the AnapEestic Yerses spoken by Tecmessa, 
accompanying it. Mr. David, who is the author of an 
excellent Romaic Grammar, and has lived and taught in 
Greece, uses the Romaic pronunciation in such a way as 
greatly to lessen my repugnance to the use of it. I had 
some conversation with him after the lecture, and he ad- 
mitted that the Ancient Greeks, in reciting verse, respected 
quantity, but excused the Modern Greeks for their neglect 
of it, upon the ground that we could no longer tell how 
both quantity and accent were to be regarded at the same 
time. He told me that Mr. Boissonade, also, was now 
reading a course of lectures on Greek Literature, at the 
College Royal de France, and that he too, and others now, 
generally in France, endeavored to adopt the modern pro- 
nunciation, but, not having been in Greece, did not perfectly 
succeed." 



■56 



DISCOURSE. 17 



On the next day after this lecture at the Sorbonne, 
he writes: "I went over to the Mazarin Library and had 
a long conversation with Mr. Nicolopoulo, one of the 
Sub-Librarians, on the pronunciation of the Modern Greek. 
He admits it is not that of the Ancients, but thinks it 
older than is generally supposed. I was pleased to find 
that he regulated reading of Greek verse by the quantity, 
without any regard to accent. I have made an arrange- 
ment with him to take some lessons in Modern Greek, and 
the pronunciation of it. I am to begin to-morrow at 
eleven o'clock." This change in his opinion was more con- 
firmed subsequently, on his visit to Greece in 1839, by 
converse with learned men there, and by hearing the 
language spoken. 

On occasion of one of his visits to our Missionary, 
Dr. Hill, and his wife, in Athens, with whom he formed 
a great intimacy, and from whom, during the whole 
of his stay there, he received the most kind attentions, 
he writes : " Miss Elizabeth Contecxati read for Mr. C. 
and myself, some passages of Romaic in such a way as 
might reconcile one to the modern pronunciation." He did 
not change his opinion that the Erasmian was nearer than 
the modern pronunciation to that of the Ancients ; but, it is 
believed, he began to think that, on the ground of expe- 
diency, it might be well to adopt a pronunciation which 
would give to the student of Greek a living language, and 
enable him to converse with learned men who are earn- 
estly struggling to advance their country to a higher civili- 
zation, and gradually to bring back their language to a 
nearer approach to its ancient glory. 

Dr. Moore's Presidency of the College lasted seven 



18 MEMORIAL 



years. He discharged all its duties with scrupulous care 
and with good success. During six years of this time, 
being one of the Trustees, and having the most warm 
and reverential regard for him, I was brought again into 
close relations with him. I never thought that he en- 
joyed the duties of the Headship of the College, as he 
formerly did those of his Professorship. They were too 
multifarious, too much devoted to details of management 
and discipline, and so not wholly congenial with his past 
habits as a student, a scholar, a thoughtful man, living 
much alone amid his books, and given to reflection. But 
here, in his new and widely different position, he had the 
same regard for the young men under his care, and the 
same solicitude for their welfare. His Address to the 
students at his first Commencement was marked by a 
singularly paternal and affectionate tone, and his counsels 
were most wise and appropriate. He pleaded with them 
as with sons, and pointed out to them the path of duty 
and peace in the most persuasive and attractive manner. 
Dr. Mooke was the third layman who had been called 
to the Presidency of the College since its foundation. 
The other two were Dr. William Samuel Johnson, the 
grandson of the first President,* who served in that hon- 
orable office from A. D. 1787 to 1800, and his imme- 



* As these pages are passing through the press, I have read a 
volume of uncommon value and interest, especially to every son of our 
College, showing great industry, thorough scholarship, unusual clearness 
and purity of style, and very sound judgment — a volume which places 
the author in the front rank of American historiographers. It is the 
"Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D. D, Missionary of 
the Church of England in Connecticut, and first President of King's 
College, New York. By E. Edwards Beardsley, D. D. New York, 1874.'' 



DISCOURSE. 19 



diate predecessor, Dr. Duer. As there was no Chaplain 
at the time, it became his duty to say the Prayers at 
Commencements. He was not only a Communicant of 
the Church, as is required by the law of the College, 
but was a devout and exemplary disciple of Christ; yet 
withal so meek and lowly in this relation, and so wholly 
unobtrusive in the performance of his religious duties, 
that, save to those who knew him intimately, there was 
no other manifestation of his religious life but that 
which appeared in his daily walk of duty and purity. 
It is not to be wondered at, then, that in view of his 
first performance of an act of worship in public, on an 
occasion so important as his first Commencement, he 
should feel deeply the responsibility which was upon him. 
The following letter was accordingly written to his friend, 
the Bishop of the Diocese of New York, which serves 
admirably to illustrate the trait of character of which I 
am speaking : 

" Columbia College, August 30th, 1842. 

" Right Reverend and Dear Sir: 

"Among the duties which devolve on me by reason 
of my late appointment, that of offering public prayers 
at our Commencement, and for the first time in my life 
leading the devotions of a numerous assembly, causes me, 
as I look forward to it, no slight uneasiness. I there- 
fore turn to you, dear Sir, for such assistance as may 
enable me to approach this solemn duty with greater hope 
of suitably discharging it. I shall, too, feel less like one 
guilty of intrusion into the sacred office, if I obtain your 
high sanction to the form of prayer that I adopt." 



20 MEMORIAL 



He then goes on to speak of the forms used by his 
predecessors, and adds : 

rt The forms I take the liberty to submit to your con- 
sideration, I have arranged chiefly after those I find among 
the papers of the late President. Will you do me the 
great kindness to examine them, to add what may seem 
wanting, to strike out everything redundant, and to re- 
concile whatever shall appear to you incongruous ? 

"I have repeatedly had occasion to admire the suita- 
bleness and great beauty of forms prepared by you, Right 
Reverend Sir, to be used in public solemnities not pro- 
vided for in our Book of Common Prayer, and I humbly 
trust that the benefit of your wisdom, and your experience 
and talent, will not on this occasion be refused to your 
Alma Mater, and to one who is, dear Sir, with respect 
and esteem unfeigned, 

" Your obedient servant, 

"Nathl. F. Moore. 
" The Rt. Rev. Benj. T. Ondebdonk, D. D." 

In his Inaugural Address, delivered at the Commence- 
ment of 1842, President Moore unfolds very clearly the 
duties of liis office, and, in the course of it, addressing 
himself especially to the students, states with great sim- 
plicity, and yet with power, the benefit and utility of the 
academic course of study, and defends the great value of 
the classics as the chief instrument of all true educators. 

" The supposed uselessness, for example, of certain stud- 
ies," the President observes, "justifies a young man, 
as he imagines, in neglecting them himself and causing 
others to do so. ' Of what advantage,' says he, ' can it ever 



DISCOUESE. 21 



prove to me, destined for the counting-house, to have 
studied the dead languages and the higher mathematics V 
Now, as to the advantages of such studies to those espe- 
cially who pursue them to a successful end, * * * it 
may at present suffice to mention the benefit that results 
from the study alone as a mental discipline, in propor- 
tion to its difficulty, without any reference to the amount 
of knowledge gained. The chief object of academic edu- 
cation is not so much to store the memory with facts 
that may admit of useful application, as to train the in- 
tellectual powers ; to develop and to strengthen faculties 
that shall enable the so educated youth to lay hold on 
any subject with ability, to engage successfully in any 
pursuit that demands intelligence and activity of mind. 
How many examples might be adduced, in England alone, 
of men who from the universities have entered at once 
upon the busiest scenes of public life — going from Oxford 
with nothing save Greek and Latin ; from Cambridge with 
mathematics only, as was thought; but, nevertheless, at the 
outset of their career, displaying a masterly ability in the 
conduct of the most varied and intricate affairs." 

At the next Commencement, in 1843, having announced 
the bequest of Mr. Frederick Gebhard, for the endow- 
ment of a Professorship of the German Language and 
Literature, and the adoption of the study thereof as a part 
of our sub-graduate course — not only on account of the 
great and daily increasing value of that language, but also, 
and especially, by the consideration that the mere study 
of it may, like tliat of Greek, be regarded as a mental dis- 
cipline, and consequently as subserving their principal de- 
sign—President Moore went on to utter the following weighty 



22 MEMORIAL 



sentences, well worthy to be written in letters of gold, and 
to be reiterated frequently and with emphasis, in these 
days when so many and such persistent efforts are made 
to substitute other and widely different principles of educa- 
tion, to the great injury of our young men and of 
society : 

"For let it be remembered that the object of our 
College is much more to educate, than to instruct; and 
the error just before alluded to is that of those who 
fancy it is merely knowledge that the College student 
seeks — who estimate most highly those pursuits from 
which they hope the most immediate fruits, and accord- 
ingly approve the student's preference of studies which 
bear, as they imagine, more practical relations to his future 
plan of life. But upon no such narrow, utilitarian views 
has our scheme of discipline been based. 

"Its design is to develop and to train the mental 
powers all, rather than to store the memory alone with 
facts. It seeks to quicken the apprehension, to strengthen 
the judgment, to purify the affections, and to refine the 
taste, rather than, by a premature attention to present 
and material objects, to substitute a sordid, calculating 
spirit for the love of moral beauty and of truth. 
With this view did the wise originators of our scheme of 
study plan it in such way that the moral and intellectual 
powers of youth should all receive due culture; and that, 
going hence, they might be qualified to enter with ability 
on any walk in life, or to engage with vigor and success 
in those professional studies of which the more peculiar 
object is to furnish and instruct the minds that previous 
education shall have formed. 



Q 



DISCOURSE. 23 



"It is consistently with these ideas that we demand 
of all who seek their education here, that they apply 
themselves to all the studies here proposed to them, as 
being calculated by their joint result to attain the true 
end of education — the highest culture of the head and 
heart." 

And this judgment, be it observed, is not that of a 
mere narrow-minded book-worm. President Moore, eminent 
as he was in scholarship, was a man of large and varied 
observation. He was no ascetic. He mingled much with 
men, in various countries. He was a man of wide 
and independent thought, no mere devotee of the past, 
registering only its deeds as worthy of notice and following. 
Besides, he had a decided taste for several branches of 
natural science, and, in later life, found his recreation, in 
part, in the study of them, especially in mineralogy and 
cognate branches. 

When, then, he speaks so emphatically in regard to 
the paramount importance of the old Academic curriculum 
as the true system of education, his opinions are worthy 
of the profoundest consideration, and are entitled to the 
greatest weight; and sad will the day be for Columbia 
College, when she repudiates her ancient traditions and 
turns her back upon her old leaders, and takes up with 
the wretched policy of those, who would fain substitute 
for the careful training and nurture of the minds and hearts 
of our youth, the filling their heads with, what they call, 
useful knowledge — giving them facts, not principles, science, 
not faith. 

And yet, Columbia College has ever pursued a lib- 
eral policy in this regard. She has not shut her ears to 



3* 



24 MEMORIAL 



the discussions on this subject, which have been carried on 
so fully and so extensively during the past forty or fifty 
years, nor refused to hearken to what are said to be the 
demands of this modern and practical age. As long ago 
as the year 1830, she established what was called "A 
Scientific and Literary Course," which was abolished after 
a trial of thirteen years, as of no real value and not 
wanted by the people. And, in 1853, a sort of Univer- 
sity system was commenced ; the body of Professors was 
greatly enlarged, and distinguished gentlemen were ap- 
pointed lecturers ; and this at a very large expenditure of 
money. 

In beginning this new course, the Chairman of the 
Committee having charge of the necessary arrangements, 
Wm. Betts, Esq. — a gentleman of very high culture and 
great reflection, universally respected among us — declared, 
in the name of the Trustees, in a Discourse delivered at the 
inauguration of several new Professors, as the ground-work 
of the proceeding, "that the proper business of a college 
education was the cultivation of the human intellect in 
all its parts and functions, with a view to a full devel- 
opment of the mental and moral qualities, generally to 
form and give direction to the mind without reference to 
any specific future employment ; " and, again, " to edu- 
cate the intellect, to purify and direct the heart, to 
train the youthful aspirants to correct motives, and to pro- 
vide them with the means of successfully pursuing any 
career which they may hereafter select, these are the ends 
which this College has essentially in view, in its system 
of sub-graduate instruction." And, in this connexion, the 
following definition of a liberal education, by Sir Wm. 



&■ 



DISCOURSE. 25 



Hamilton, is given : " An education in which the individual 
is cultivated, not as an instrument towards some ulterior end, 
but as an end unto himself alone ; in other words, as an 
education in which his absolute perfection as a man, and 
not merely his relative dexterity as a professional man, is 
the scope immediately in view." 

But, saving these fundamental truths, the Trustees were 
willing to make provision for a course of instruction, com- 
prehending a large circle of human learning. But, after a 
fair trial, the scheme came to naught, involving the utter 
loss of many thousands of dollars. 

Five years afterwards, under very peculiar circumstances, 
the School of Mines was founded, which very soon took 
the form of a school of professional instruction, distinct 
from the College proper, and which is still in successful 
operation. 

If then, Columbia College still maintains the old ground, 
it is not because she has not been alive to what is going 
on in the world around her, and not willing to consider 
and test new theories and plans, but because she finds 
that the old paths, founded in the fundamental character- 
istics and principles of the human mind and soul, and 
witnessed to by long ages of experience, are those in which 
she ought still and ever to walk, knowing that they are 
the paths by which our sons will best be educated for 
the duties of life, and for the attainment of a blessed and 
glorious existence hereafter. 

I will close what I have, now, to say on this point, 
with a most beautiful and eloquent passage from the dis- 
course of Mr. Betts, before alluded to: 

"Wretched indeed would be the day for this institution, 



&- 



26 MEMORIAL 



should she lose her proud position as the Classical College 
of the country ; saddened the hopes of her sons, should 
she become indifferent to the precious treasures of those 
ancient people. 

" Never may this venerable institution become insensible 
to the value of classic learning ; never may she cease 
from its copious fountains to draw exuberant supplies ; 
never, never, may she forget that, saving the gift of the 
Sacred Writings, in these old treasures of Greece and 
Rome are garnered the most precious stores of deep phi- 
losophy, unequaled wisdom, of unrivaled eloquence, of poetic 
excellence; and there, too, those marvels of artistic beauty, 
elevating the imagination, refining the sentiments and puri- 
fying the heart, which age after age admires and won- 
ders at, and which are endued with a grace and love- 
liness beyond the rivalry and almost the imitation of 
modern times. Never may our College cease to be a semi- 
nary in which such things are taught, and through 
which a knowledge of them may in some measure be 
attained; and then, when, in her after-course, she is pre- 
paring her sons for the busy tumults of life, or unfold- 
ing to them the strange secrets of the material world, 
explaining their operations, and applying their powers to 
the good of man; or walking with them in the high 
regions of the heavenly lights, she may say to them : My 
sons, I have tried in all things to perform my duty ; I 
have opened to you the treasures of the past and of the 
present ; I have sought to impart to you not only learn- 
ing, but understanding ; I have taught you to regard know- 
ledge no otherwise than as ' a rich storehouse for the glory 
of God and the relief of man's estate;' and I charge you, 



DISCOURSE. 27 



as you value the privileges of the past and the aspirations 
of the future, I charge you, never to apply it to any 
lower purposes." 

During the last sixteen years of his life, with few excep- 
tions, and an occasional visit to his friends in New York, 
President Moore resided quietly in the Highlands, enjoy- 
ing his books and such limited society as a retired coun- 
try place afforded ; and, in fine weather, passing much time 
in the open air, constructing walks through the woods, and 
awaiting patiently the call of God to a higher life. His 
death, though sudden, had been long anticipated by him, 
and did not find him unprepared ; for a long time previ- 
ously, his Greek Testament was never far from his hand, 
and was generally the first book he opened in the morning. 

Of his character, very little need be said to those who 
had any intimacy with him ; his unaffected humility, his 
unswerving sincerity and truthfulness, his tender regard to 
the feelings of those around him, and his warm and affec- 
tionate disposition were apparent even on the most casual 
acquaintance, and endeared him in the strongest manner to 
those who enjoyed a more intimate relation, whilst the 
great fund of information he possessed on many and various 
subjects, the fruit of his extensive reading and much travel, 
made his conversation highly interesting.* 



*Since this page was written, I have received from Wm. A. Jones, Esq , 
an Alumnus of our College, and some time Librarian of the same, an 
interesting letter, touching the late President, illustrative of his re- 
markable memory at an advanced age. In his letter to me, Mi. 
Jones says : 

" The note I refer to (from President Moore,) is a very kind and flattering acknowledgment 
of the receipt of a copy of one of my three printed pamphlets connected with the College, that on 
the Library, and a descriptive account of its treasures. In it Dr. Moore calls my attention 



% 



28 MEMORIAL 



In the words of a friend, " There was something so 
peculiarly attractive about him, that none could come within 
the influence of his gentle, cordial manner, without liking 
him, and to us he was always peculiarly kind. We feel 
that it was a privilege to have been admitted to the friend- 
ship of such a man." 

About three months before his death, Dr. Moore visited 
the College once more. The Board of the College was 
in session at the time. Business was at once suspended 
that the Professors might pay their respects to him. Two, 
only, of his former colleagues were now in the Faculty, 
and one of these was absent. He was then in his nine- 
tieth year, but still strong in body and in mind. " He 
conversed for some time," writes an eye-witness, " and mani- 
fested great interest in everything connected with the 
College, and impressed us all with the dignity and sweet- 
ness of his manners and character." After his retiring, 
the Faculty passed a resolution, expressive of their pleas- 
ure at his visit, which was sent to him with a letter, by 
his successor, then in his former seat, President Barnard, 
the reception of which greatly gratified the venerable man, 
as appears from the following note in reply: 

" Woodlawn, 25th January, 1872. 
" Reverend and Dear Sir : — 

"It was only on reaching home yesterday, that I 
had the pleasure to receive your very kind letter of the 



to what he supposed to be an original autograph of Racine, and MSS. notes of the 
French tragedian in a folio of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and refers as indirect cor- 
roborative evidence of its authenticity, to its resemblance to a lithographic signature of the 
dramatist in a little volume also in the Library, V Art de Main, ' which professes to de- 
termine the character and disposition of men by their handwriting,' neither of which 
volumes, it is probable, he had seen for many years ; he, probably, near 80." 



DISCOURSE. 29 



12tli inst., communicating a resolution of the Faculty of 
the College, in relation to my visit of that day. It was 
equally unexpected and gratifying to me, to find that what 
I had felt almost ashamed of, and had feared might be 
regarded as an unwarrantable interruption of serious busi- 
ness by my radotage, had, by the great humanity and most 
courteous kindness of your Faculty, been placed and viewed 
in a light that makes it one of the most pleasing inci- 
dents of my declining years. 

" Be pleased, dear Sir, to accept, and to express to the 
Faculty, my grateful thanks; and allow me to congratulate 
you on the brighter prospect that seems now to dawn on 
friends of the Institution, which, under your wise admin- 
istration, has attained so high a rank, of seeing it estab- 
lished on a site, and in such structures, as shall be worthy 
of it. 

"I am, dear sir, with highest regard and esteem, very 
sincerely yours, 

"Nath'l F. Moore. 

" Eev. Dr. Barnard, President of Col. College." 

On the morning of the 25th April, 1872, he was sud- 
denly stricken by Paralysis, and, in the full possession of 
his faculties, he lay upon his bed quietly, without pain or 
suffering, perfectly and calmly conscious that the great change 
was near at hand, until two o'clock on the morning of 
the following Saturday, when he passed away gently and 
peacefully to his eternal home. On the third day after, 
the solemn burial service of the Church was said over his 
mortal remains, in St. Mark's Church, New York, and his 
body was laid in a tomb adjacent, in the presence of a 



30 M IS M O 14 I A L 



large number of friends, and old associates and pupils, not 
with sighs and tears, but with thanks to God for the gift 
of such a man to our time — a Christian man; eminent 
for his lofty, unsullied character; distinguished by his faith- 
ful discharge of duty in the high calling of an instructor 
and guide of youths — a scholar — a sage — and a bright and 
glorious example to those who survive. 









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